Moira's Dancing Card
by Mercurial Weather
Summary: In the figures of the quadrille you are expected to change partners midway, but when Wendy Moira Angela Darling landed on James Hook's arms he was not willing to let her go.


**Moira's Dancing Card**

"_Run away with me, lost souls in revelry, running wild and running free. Two kids, you and me. And I say: Hey! Hey! Hey! Living like we are renegades...__" From the song Renegades by the X Ambassadors _

_**Programme Du Bal 1: March: March Of The Toy Soldiers from the Nutcracker-Tchaikovsky: Peter.**_

She had felt the house move in the middle of the night and had grabbed at the sword underneath the pillow of leaves that Peter had fashioned for her. As soon as she thought of the boy she remembered their talk last evening. Not that she was expecting anything different. She was a smart girl. She had figured out a thing or two after all the time she had spent playing house with the boy fairy. How could she cry out betrayal when Peter's allegiances were to no one but himself? He had never led her to believe anything else. Still, the hurt bloomed in her anew, fresh like one of those fairy tale flowers that sprouts again, perfect and unchanged, after you crush it under your heel.

The flower she had let bloom in her chest the last night, against her better judgment, had been crushed too. Crushed along with all her revelries, though those weren't growing back. What her parents hadn't managed over thirteen years of indoctrination, Peter had done in less than a minute with those carelessly cruel words: It is only make believe. Can anything ever be as destructive as the truth?

It was only make believe and it could never be anything else but make believe. Not with Pan, who could draw sustenance from thin air. But she was flesh and blood, he had plucked her out from time when she no longer had her baby teeth. Her teeth needed to sink in something more solid than air for her to feel truly alive. On the brink of womanhood, make believe was no longer enough. She couldn't change what he was, but she couldn't change what she was either. To hell with could, why would she change to please anyone? She would not!

What was so unacceptable about her that everyone was always trying to change her? Was she so wrongly put together that people felt compelled to break her down and rebuild her into someone they found more acceptable? She inhaled deeply to pull herself through the pain. But the pain wouldn't relent and she thought bitterly: isn't living in pain the nature of the world? Perhaps, finally, she was growing up.

Cynicism tasted sour in her mouth and she had a clear picture of what that mouth would become after a few years away from Neverland. The image of it was so much like her mother's -with that sad little kiss always waiting to be given in the corner of her lips- that it almost made her cry like the little girl she still was.

She dug her nails deep in her palms to prevent the tears from falling. She had always despised weakness. And she despised her parents for conforming to what was expected of them. She could add the boy to the list. He was as much a coward as those two were. Peter Pan was not living a dream, he was running away from a nightmare. There is a big difference between those two things. And she was just old enough to be able to tell that difference.

Well, Wendy Moira Angela Darling would be damned to hell thrice over before running away or conforming. She was braver and so much stronger than that. She didn't even need fairy dust to spread her wings and fly. Damn her parents! Damn Peter Pan!

She muttered between gritting teeth: "They can all rot in hell!"

Though hell sounded a thousand times better than leaving fairy land to become a banker's wife. She tried to picture a life with little clingy things at her tit or pulling at her skirt. That and a husband who would want to be waited upon in his house and in his bed 'til death did them apart. Because they would be his: the house, the children and even the wife. That is all she would be: his wife and their mother. Needy, greedy suckling on her until she dried up and there was nothing left of who she had once been. The summer days lived by the edge of the sword in the land of fairies and mermaids would be all but forgotten. She would get herself committed to an asylum, if she tried to hold onto those memories.

It was time to get real. Having no independent fortune she would barely be above the servants, if her husband could afford them. And she would have to toil like a servant, if he couldn't. She could end up wedded to someone like her own father, who couldn't afford a proper nanny; but could do nothing but whine about what the neighbors would think of a dog watching over his children. As for her mother, who prefers to have a dog nanny than losing social standing by watching over her kids herself? She cringed in disgust. Hatred rushing up her throat like bile, almost chocking her.

What was Peter always saying? Yes, he said death would be the greatest adventure. Was that because he knew life, real life, could never measure up? But death held no appeal to her. Guess that is the difference between innocence and self-awareness. If the careless disregard for anyone but his own dreams that Pan had could be called innocence. She frowned deep in thought. Then she had put the sword away. She was in no rush to die, or to go back to the "real" world. And, perhaps, just perhaps, she didn't need to. For the moment she was going to pretend to be asleep and see how things played out.

_That's right Moira, _for that is the name she called herself inside her own head_, you buy yourself some time, my dear._ Of all the names she had been given Moira was the one that felt closer to her soul. She kept it in the hidden part of her mental drawers, the ones her mother could not reach whenever she picked her children brains and carefully expurgated them from any original idea they may have dared conceive.

She took out the tortoiseshell comb she had stolen from one of the mermaids from the nest of leaves and ran it through her long dark tresses. She was meeting with a gentleman and needed to look like a lady. That's a trick she had learned from her mom, Mrs. Darling could look the part of lady of quality with next to no resources to work with. At least the woman had taught her one thing she could use.

_**Programme Du Bal 2: Metal Bridge Quadrille: Danse des Forbans from Le Corsaire-Jules-Henn Vernoy de Saint-Georges: James**_

James Hook knocked gently on the flimsy door of the shack he had stolen from The Boy and waited to be admitted by the little lady within. He had been raised like a proper gentleman and would never even dream of entering a lady's boudoir uninvited.

Before choosing a life of piracy, he had attended sixth form at Eton. He had completed the courses with top grades when he was but sixteen. Of course, he had up and left his family's well entrenched claim on respectability after just six months of being at Balliol College in Oxford. He still had a great appreciation for Philosophy and Poetry, Marcus Aurelius and Shelley being in equal parts the only comfort he had had in more years than he could count. But he had chosen to make his way in the world with the sword instead of the pen.

All he had retained from his time at Oxford was "the tranquil consciousness of an effortless superiority" which was the mark of Balliol men according to the description that the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith was said to have uttered; quoted in one of the periodicals that managed to float ashore in the accursed island that was currently his prison.

James Hook, Hook being quite obviously an alias, as his real name could still set the country ablaze; thought those bloody periodicals were but one more affront from The Boy. Worse part of it, James suspected that it was not even a conscious effort at mockery on The Boy's part. The bastard elf might even think himself grand for letting him have notice of home. Pan liked to have fun at his expense, but he wasn't smart enough to know what an inconsiderate sot he truly was… The Boy was the lowest of the low, not even caring about good form.

The frown in his blackavised visage turned into an amused look, blue forget-me-not eyes all but twinkling, when the answer finally came from the ramshackle leaf cabin.

"_Entrez, s'il vous plaît,_" said the girl with a fairly good pronunciation.

He had grown used to the tinkling of fairies and the wailing cries of mermaids as the only female voices he could ever hear. The redskins would never speak with them when they captured them. They gave the pirates the silent treatment until they died or were slain. And, so far, the lost boys had always been boys. The girl's voice was musical and surprisingly deeper than he had expected. It was also firmer than he had hoped it would be. Nothing could ever be simple in Neverland.

When he opened the door the girl was also not what he had been expecting. Inside the leaf cabin, with a candle as only source of light, James stared at a lovely brunette right out of a canvas by Caravaggio. She was sited on the floor of the toy house, barefoot and with a dirty nightgown, her only adornment a red silk sash he recognized as being stolen by The Boy in one of his raids at Pirate's Cove. With her dark tresses and the brightly red sash she was poised and calm like a Renaissance merchant princess waiting to grant audience, which apparently she was: "You must be Captain James Hook, I was expecting you."

James Hook had been too young for a Grand Tour when he had quit the world in favor of the land of the fairies, but he had traveled extensively with his mother before that. Mum couldn't stand her womanizing husband debauched ways, but she couldn't leave him. That would have been committing social suicide and his mum was not suicidal. Dad had killed her by consumption, when he had forced her to spend her winters like a nomad away from her home, as if it had been her who was at fault.

Before she had died, James' mother was raising him as a free thinker, teaching him no other religion but the worship of the arts, especially music and paintings. Mother had thought that a nature raised in love with beauty could not possibly be thwarted or corrupted by the world. He wasn't sure how well that had worked out. Of course a pirate shouldn't care about being a disappointment to his mother, but he couldn't help feeling a small tinge of guilt pricking what was left of his heart.

He quit his revelries and went back to the present. The girl could also be a Salome or a Judith ready to claim some poor bastard's head, judging from the sword hidden underneath the nest of leaves. His amusement grew from her calling him Captain James Hook, instead of the insults he usually received from Pan and his Lost Boys like Captain Cod Fish. Still, he looked poignantly at the sword barely hidden and said: "Where you, Miss…?"

She had swiftly covered the sword with more leaves and smiled a politely circumspect grin. Like he had caught her in a minor _faux pas_ at some social function and were asking for his complicit indulgence. She looked directly at his eyes, completely ignoring his left hand – the other one had the hook- which had promptly gone to the hilt of his saber and carried on unfazed: "I'm Miss Wendy Moira Angela Darling. I'm here in Neverland at the behest of Peter Pan. Though I guess you already knew that when you… invited me to your brig, Captain. I've only seen the Jolly Roger from afar, but it seems like a fine seaworthy ship. I have often wondered how it looks from up close."

James was pleased she had recognized the Jolly Roger as a brig, people tended to confuse it for a brigantine a type of sail ship that has two masts too, but a true brig has square-rigging on both masts and a gaff-rigged kicker as opposed to the gaff-rigged main mast of the brigantine. Or, worse, some sweet water sailors confused his beautiful ship for a barquentine, which usually have three masts and are full with Dockyard Oysters from her majesty Navy. And is a sail ship no honest pirate would set foot on, other than in chains.

The other thing that had pleased James Hook greatly was finding out that the girl was one crafty minx. She made it sound as if he had indeed invited her to visit, instead of kidnapping her. Regardless, the girl's deviousness was a much welcomed change from the spitting, biting and cursing of the Lost Boys or the uneducated roughness of his crew. How can you play anything but a pantomime villain when the supposed hero has no brains? The smile in James' face made him look almost handsome, save for the cruel twist in the corner of his mouth that never, ever left it, when he offered her his hand to step out: "Then by all means, Miss Darling, please, come aboard."

When the girl gave him his hand, he pulled it and practically hoisted her out of the leaf cabin. She weighed next to nothing. He thought bitterly that was what usually happened after sharing a few meals with Peter Pan. The elf said he fed on air, James suspected he actually fed on his playmates, sucking life right out of them until they disappeared in a bubble of giggles and good old fun. The little fools… James Hook was a tough bone, he was not going to disappear just to please The Boy. If he could be nothing but a thorn in his side, so be it.

Before letting the girl's hand go, he pulled it upwards, close to his lips. He let it linger half an inch from actually touching it, right on the border of impropriety. A flutter of anger flickered in the girl's face; but, almost immediately, her demeanor went politely blank again. She was hard hit by the calculated insult, but she held herself with aplomb. Very good form indeed.

And then the girl had further surprised him by pulling her hand away, not brusquely, but with enough force to be borderline insulting. She placed the tip of her fingers firmly in the arm he hadn't offered her. Administering the seasoned seaman a silk gloved slap, as if she were saying, if you don't longer remember how to behave like a gentleman, sir, I certainly remember how to behave like a lady. And I won't suffer any treatment beneath my station.

James Hook hid a chuckle behind a small cough and conceded the little lady's victory, for the moment. You give and you take. His dogs were, not surprisingly, oblivious to the whole exchange. But the smile in James' face widened. So much so that he had to hide it behind his black candle-like curls. He didn't want his dogs catching him smiling like that.

But he couldn't help smiling. He was in the presence of a lady with guts. Not at all what Pan's playmates usually were: the best of them never were more than little braggarts filled with hot air and no real mettle. The worst were craven sheep who could only bleat in response to their leader's cocky crowing. That and the information from his spies had led him to believe he was going to find a trembling mother hen inside the shack. The girl was turning out to be completely different. How positively intriguing.

He turned towards his boatswain who, jack of all trades, doubled as his cook and majordomo. James said: "Mr. Smee, we'll have dinner in the Captain's Cabin."

Smee's glasses rode his bulbous nose right down to its tip, as they often did when he was befuddled, which was most of the time: "Dinner, Cap'ain?" he asked in his thick Irish accent as he set his glasses back up in his nose.

Captain James Hook cocked a mean eyebrow: "Yes, dinner, Mr. Smee. You'll bring it to the Captain's Cabin. First make sure you iron my dinner frock and a gown you'll fetch from the treasure trove for the lady. We will have the roasted flamingo with mushrooms."

He managed to say it as if they ever had anything but flamingo. He congratulated himself for his good form. Aside from bears, tigers, lions, wolves and crocodiles that were hard to hunt and next to impossible to eat; those bloody smelly birds were the only bird that could be trapped in the accursed island.

So they dinned on flamingo or on cod. Yes, the only fishes that ever approached the Jolly Roger were cods. Even if the island seemed to have a tropical climate while The Boy was there. And even though cods prefer cold waters; all they could ever fish were cods. The irony that once upon a time cod in sauce hollandaise with grilled asparagus had been his favorite dish, was not lost on him. That one, he was convinced, was a personal affront. One that he planned to repay in kind once he managed to get a hold of the elf.

Lesser men might have been broken by it. Not James Hook. He had rose above it. He even had the presence of mind to pen a recipe book of flamingo and cod delicacies. After all, flamingo tongues had once been greatly appreciated by Roman Emperors. With enough pepper flamingo tongues made a good broth. And the properties of the cod liver were widely known. With the right amount of Port and spices, cod liver made a very decent pâté… A whole lot of Port…

Oh, what James wouldn't have given for anything else to dine on! Anything! At times he had even considered cannibalism. Taking a pound of flesh from The Boy or one of his cohorts in exchange for the pound of flesh that had been taken from him, seemed like a fair trade. But he wasn't going to allow himself to descend into savagery. Never on account of bloody Peter Pan! Of course, that did not preclude the descent into savagery he intended to indulge in once he got a hold of The Boy.

James sighed inwardly. It would do him no good to think about that presently. He had been about to lead the girl to his cabin, when he had remembered how disastrous the last formal dinner he had tried to host had been. The least of it not being that he had lost his hand during the after-dinner conversation. The hook pricked insidiously in what was left of his hand; like a flint sparking close to a fuse.

He added annoyed at having to say it, as Smee should have been able to figure it out himself; but it is so hard to find good service among pirates: "Set the table with the Damask tablecloth and the Christofle Malmaison dinner service. We will use the baccarat crystal."

James looked at the girl and tried to calculate how old she could be. In that she was also different from Pan's usual playmates. She was a girl on the brink of stopping being a girl. Just like he had been a boy on the brink of stopping being a boy when his foolish dreams of roaming free in a world simpler and wider than the one he was meant to live in had whisked him away to Neverland. Curse the day.

James couldn't ask her age, that would have been rude, so he decided to play it safe: "Wine for me, Mr. Smee, and lemonade for the lady."

He hoped there were at least two good baccarat glasses left. His stepmother would be furious. Of course, his stepmother had probably been livid when she found out her favorite dinner set was missing, which was precisely why James had taken that and her jewels when he had ran away from home. He had taken that and father's money, which the old fool didn't keep in a bank but in gold in a hidden passageway of the family home. James had taken the money along with father's best cigars and his favorite tortoiseshell double cigar holder. He had wanted to spite his parents. He knew nothing would hurt them worse, because they loved those possessions more than the boy that was more burden than charge to them.

No wonder, those trinkets had been at times the focus of his rage. James tended to forget his otherwise impeccable manners when he was enraged. Though Mr. Starkey -a perfect gentleman and his first mate- and Mr. Smee tried to keep him in line where good manners were concerned. Of late, enraged was James' usual mood. As wine and liquor tasted weak as a water in Neverland, James had taken to getting drunk on anger to pass his endless time. He might have crushed the last of those glasses with his hook without even noticing it.

Remembering both the lost of his hand and the lost of his temper, made him feel shame. So he added with a sharp edge in his voice that was usually absent when he addressed his bosun: "And this time make sure the silverware is adequately polished, Mr. Smee."

Smee, an oddly genial man who could smile gently at children right until he cut their throats, cowered as if James had physically smacked him.

James called them all his dogs, but Smee had a real dog's blind loyalty. The nonconformist Irishman was Rousseau's good savage personified. Hurting him was as wrong as hurting a noble mastiff. Never mind the mastiff could turn into a savage killer when his master set him loose upon a prey.

He stifled a sigh and tapped the man gently on the shoulder with his hook: "Chop-chop, Mr. Smee. Iron my frock, get a gown for the lady and serve dinner in the Captain's Cabin."

The lady interjected: "I'll have a red gown, if you have one."

Smee looked balefully at her and all but growled.

James who had always liked brunettes bold enough to wear red, smiled approvingly at the girl. He yanked the bosun's chain and said: "You heard the lady, Mr. Smee. Bring her the red taffeta ball gown."

_The décolletage on that gown is a bit risqué, but that may be a chance for the girl to learn the lesson of be careful what you wish for. A very profitable lesson to anyone involved with damned Peter Pan, _James thought.

Smee had nodded obediently and said as he made his way ambling to the kitchen: "O' course, Cap'ain. O' course. Dinner frock, red gown, dinner: Wine, lemonade, roasted flamingo in the Christofle dinnerware and baccarat crystal. Dinner frock, red gown, dinner: Wine, lemonade, roasted flamingo in the Christofle dinnerware and baccarat crystal. Dinner frock, red gown..."

Feeling a bit wretched as he did every time he was not courteous with Mr. Smee, James turned around and noticed that the rest of the crew were gawking at the girl. Her shapely form was fully visible under the flimsy, wind-torn nightgown. Perhaps the girl was older than he had initially thought. That nightgown looked downright sinful by the shine of a full moon. The one shinning above them was the third that month, as it was one of James manias to keep counting time, or try to, in the madhouse gyroscope of Neverland. He wondered what that meant. The Boy could act five one moment and the next he could act twelve or thirteen. What exactly had he been doing with this scantly clothed girl under three full moons? Not that he truly cared. The only thing he truly wanted The Boy to be was dead and forgotten.

There is nothing more cruel than hope. And James Hook knew a thing or two about cruelty. With some effort he focused his attention back on the present. The dogs were allowed to raid the redskin's villages. Those raids into Great Big Little Panther's territory were the men only solace and James couldn't deny that to them once in a while. Even if he seldom joined them and even if he had never brought a native woman back for himself. But gawking like that at a lady of quality? That was the worst form ever! With one movement that was elegantly fluid in spite of his hook and that didn't even ruffled the plume in his wide brimmed hat, he took off his red velvet coat and covered her with it. Then he had spat on the deck, theatrically indignant.

He felt his men cower and thought… Good. Abject fear from the likes of them was the highest compliment. His dogs may not have noticed his exchange with the girl, but the girl was indeed privy to what was happening between him and his dogs. And, though she didn't pull the coat tighter about herself, as some other girls might have done; she passed her hand over the silk lining appreciatively. And then she had smiled sweetly at him.

Montesquieu said that nothing can create a bond among men as gratitude. James Hook felt a pang of something akin to a feeling -other than hatred- inside him. So his eyes had only the barest shade of red in them, when he turned around to give his men another lesson in manners. Nevertheless; that little red tint was enough to put the fear of god in his crew's blackened hearts: "Back to your duties, dogs. Now!"

The crew scrambled on the deck, racing to hide aloft like rats. As he strode on the deck with deft steps, guiding the girl, his men couldn't get away from him quickly enough.

James had turned towards the girl and with a polite inclination of the head pointed towards the door of the cabin: "This way, please, mademoiselle."

"With pleasure, Captain," she had entered the cabin, replying his bow with a barely polite nod an Empress wouldn't give to a rabbit hunting count from the outreaches of her Empire.

That stung James who, upon his lineage, could stand in front of Queen Victoria herself without being compelled by protocol to bend his back. The little minx had mettle indeed. He looked at her warningly, and conveyed a silent message: _careful you don't overdo it, my dear. I may kill you the moment you stop being amusing._

The girl's sole reply was that sweet half girlish- half crocodile grin that sent another shiver down James stiff spine. She was not going to be an easy hostage to hold. They were inside his cabin, so he didn't bother hiding the sigh that escaped his lips. Things could never be easy in Neverland, not for James Hook.

It had been long since roasted flamingo had lost all appeal, but the girl hadn't had a decent meal in Neverland so far and she dug into the disgusting bird's carcass with glee. It was a veritable joy to watch someone eating so heartily in the accursed isle. James even felt inspired to dig into his plate. Blessed Mr. Smee had even managed to procure potatoes, small and round but tasty. For the first time in lord knows how long, James ate his dinner with gusto, instead of on principle. As no creature in the island really needed to eat.

He didn't remember that flamingo could taste so much like chicken. Then again -in the land of make believe- that may have been the girl's doing. Would he dare? He sipped the wine and it tasted, well, it tasted as wine should. _I'll be damned,_ he thought, _Pan may have just met his match with this girl_.

The girl interrupted his thoughts by raising her glass of lemonade and saying: "Can I have some of it? I've never drank wine before."

James cocked an inquisitive eyebrow. Was the girl conscious of what she was doing or like Pan she just made things happen out of aimless ignorant will.

She stiffened her back: "I'll be… I guess I already am. It is hard to keep track of time here. But we must have been here more than a couple of months, so I'm already thirteen."

That solved the mystery of the girl's age. Though the way she filled the red taffeta gown was a fair warning that she was probably older than he had initially guessed. Still, she was too young to have wine. But devil forbid James Hook from ever becoming the guardian of propriety, save for purely aesthetic reasons. He nodded towards Mr. Smee that was standing by the table.

The Irishman poured the wine directly inside the lemonade glass, which, might not have been such a bad idea. James had absolutely no interest in having to deal with a blind drunk girl. He'd had more than a fair share of that during the only debutant season he had ever attended. You'd be surprised of how many girls of theoretically good families tried to find the courage to dance with the boy they are pinning for in the bottom of a champagne glass. James had no illusions in respect of the reasons why girls of good family had pinned for him. If his family name had not been enticing enough, his family fortune was too much of a temptation to resist. The whole affair made him feel like a bloody stallion parading on the selling block. And had been part of the reasons that had made him leave all of it behind.

The girl ignored Mr. Smee's clumsiness, the moment her lips touched the glass the liquid inside it turned suspiciously denser and darker.

He flinched. He looked at Mr. Smee to see if he had noticed anything. As always the bosun had a bland stare. Were his eyes fooling him or had James Hook just assisted to a modern age miracle? Had that girl just turned a half lemonade- half wine glass into just wine? Granted, the evangelists may have not been impressed about turning half a glass. But James was.

The girl took a sip from her glass, bit her full lips and sighed contentedly: "Oh this is so good! This is the best meal I have had in ages." She rose her glass in playful salute towards Mr. Smee: "My compliments to the chef."

Mr. Smee was not swayed but James Hook was. He chuckled: "Ah, I take it mademoiselle finds the hospitality of Peter Pan's table lacking."

She laughed, a deep gurgling joyful and slightly mocking sound that he found incredibly pleasing: "You don't know half of it, Captain."

"You might be surprised, mademoiselle. Once upon a time I too enjoyed Mr. Pan's hospitality. I would say I enjoyed his friendship, if it weren't for my deep conviction that The Boy is incapable of real sentiment; save for the shallowest kind. Not only his teeth are that of a baby, his brain and his heart are a baby's too. He is a veritable _tabula rasa_ in that nothing sticks firmly to him. He just needs to turn around to forget about you. Concepts like loyalty, solidarity and commitment which are the truer bases of human friendship mean nothing to Pan. But I will say, after his own fashion, he can be at times a jolly companion. And he once gave me his confidence right until the day when he decided to take it back, along with my hand and make me the villain in his pantomime. One could say he took his right hand's right hand. Mr. Pan's sense of humor can be awfully literal at times."

The girl scoffed: "Yes, he can be awful, alright. He has the casual cruelty of the fairies of yore in that he has the tendency of taking that which you hold dearest in exchange for whatever small favors he grants, without taking into account if you want his favors or not and without making you party as to what the bargain entails before you strike it."

He gazed into her eyes and saw his hatred reflected in hers: "I take it that he has also excised a pound of flesh from you, my dear."

She smirked meanly, looking far older than the thirteen years she claimed to be. She placed her hand over his hook and squeezed his wrist lightly: "My wounds are not as readily apparent as yours, Captain. But Pan has taken something dear from me. And I, like you, James Hook, think a reckoning is due."

He said it slowly, almost in a murmur, not wanting to disturb the night air around them: "A reckoning may be hard to achieve while Neverland remains The Boy's stage, Miss Darling."

She got up from the table as she could no longer remain sited. She walked to the piano, sat on the bench and ran her fingers deftly up and down the scales. She turned around to look at him, still sitting at the table, and said: "Do you play the piano, Captain?"

He rose his hook: "I play as much as I can now, dear. Though at one time in my life music was the only thing that made any sense to me. It kept me sane through some black days."

She had been nosily going through his music sheets, but looked up at him with dark eyes full with hurt: "And he took that away from you."

James shrugged with a casualness he didn't really feel: "As you said, he tends to take that which is dearest to you. It's not personal. Nothing really is with Peter Pan. He is too self absorbed to have any regard for anyone's life, not even to hurt them. All the harm he does is quite inadvertent, mademoiselle."

She inhaled raggedly, her rage palpable: "Play the piano with me, Captain. I'll be the right hand, you will be the left hand."

If he had looked in the mirror, he would have seen the face of the sixteen year old he had been when he was first cast away ashore Neverland. But, as flawed as he was, James Hook was not vain. So he didn't look at the mirror when he went to sit on the piano bench at a scandalous distance from the girl. To be able to play she was practically leaning against him. Her legs were turning one way and his the other, but still they would have been excluded from polite society if anyone would have caught them sitting like that. And Mr. Smee was not much of a chaperon. He was staring indifferently out of a porthole.

It wasn't until after James was sited that he noticed the music sheet the girl had picked. It was Schubert's _Der Erlkönig_ in Liszt arrangement for piano. It was gracious of her to chose a piece in which the left hand handles the more interestingly musical part. Though the right hand plays no small part as it has to cope with those darned octaves; and there is always the risk of losing sentiment in favor of technical prowess with those.

Then again, it was entirely possible that the girl had merely chosen it attracted to it for, over the printed music sheet, it had his own annotations for a purely left-handed arrangement. She might have chosen it without understanding the real difficulty of the piece. He shot her a bemused smirk: "That is a rather ambitious song, my dear. One only accomplished pianists should attempt."

She began playing before replying. She tackled the octaves with economy of movement and focus. She wasn't even looking at the music sheet. Yet she got just the right vibration out of James' piano. She also played with undeniable sentiment. She said: "It is a fitting song for tonight's after-dinner conversation. Don't you think? Are you familiar with Goethe's poem, Captain?"

Given how the other one had turned out, James should have been weary of after-dinner conversations. But he was too pleased to know that she knew the source material. That is always good and was rather unexpected. Pan usually preferred his playmates to be conceited brutes. The girl was conceited, but not brutish. If James hadn't been a competent pianist himself, he would have been hard pressed to follow her. He picked up the gauntlet, playing by her side, dangerously close while his hook rested over his leg and replied: "I know Goethe's poem by heart, in German. It is one of my favorites."

She smiled with a nod as her hand flew fairy like into the more lyric part of the song: "I only know it in Alfred Bowring's English translation. I must admit that while we studied it at school, I might not have been paying enough attention to the tale of the elf king who whispered into the child's ear about his beautiful land filled with marvels just for him."

James smiled: "Young boys are rash, you can't blame them for believing sweet words whispered in their ears by sneaky fairies."

"I wish I had paid more attention, especially to the last part, when the disbelieving father -who had been trying to outrun fate with a fast horse- finds the boy dead and unmoving against his chest, whisked away by the fairies in spite of his best efforts. It should have been an admonitory tale. For _f__ā__ta_ is the female form of the Nominative _f__ā__tum_: fate and it is often used to designate fairies in earlier sources, like Morgan Le Fay being called _Fata Morgana _in_ Vita Merlini_. But, pity, I never did pay too much heed to what they taught me at school. Still, what I would like to give to the _f__ā__to_ in the Dative, is nothing but what the fatuous _f__ā__ti_ in the Genitive so richly deserves."

The girl's declension lesson would have been droll, if she hadn't ended it with clenched teeth and murderous eyes. She had obviously been paying more attention to what they had taught her at school than she liked to let on. Did girls learn Latin, nowadays? In any case, if this particular girl's objective was ingratiating herself to James, she was being rather successful. _Floreat Etona_, like most Eton men he loved his classics. An obvious play, if it is well played, can be as effective as a sneak attack. And the girl played well, she played extremely well.

To reach some of the keys played with the left hand he had to go over her right hand, almost touching her. The fur of her arms rose in response to his passing arm as if by magnetism. He inhaled deeply to steady himself, but was far worse off for his efforts. Was the girl wearing perfume? He obviously hadn't spied on her dressing, he had been careful to pick the dagger lying on his desk, though, better safe than sorry. But there were no perfumes in his cabin. Yet somehow there was a rich, sweet and feverish smell wafting from her. Perhaps it was just the gown. But the red taffeta silk dress had laid dead over coins and jewels for many years before the girl brought it back to live.

And the ball gown was not the only thing awaken from a long revelry by her. The girl kept perfect tempo with him throughout the whole piece and the disquisition. It was an uncanny synchronicity; just like they were the right hand and left hand of one single individual. Though they weren't. Even if he felt deeply attuned to the girl, James was acutely aware of her otherness as the naked skin of her shoulders and back almost brushed his chest. He would only have to lean a little to kiss the beauty mark on her left shoulder. He suddenly felt the urge of a hunger he had all but forgotten since he entered Neverland.

As they reached the finale. He declaimed with the elegant diction that had won him acclaim at Eton. His voice was a pleasant tenor that made the poetry sound almost like song: _"Dem Vater grauset's; er reitet geschwind. Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind, Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not; In seinen Armen das Kind war tot."_

The music reached its ending and they sat looking at each other, breathing heavily. Like hatred had reflected from his eyes into hers, desire was mirrored in between them.

Mr. Smee, untouched by what was transpiring between them, had pointed at the porthole and shouted: "Look Cap'ain. A meteor shower!"

James couldn't care less about the night sky. His curt reply was an order. The kind of order his crew knew better than to disobey. He knew he was going to feel wretched tomorrow for yelling at the bosun. But the 'morrow was not going to come, not for a long while. Pan could have the sky any other eve, that one would be theirs. He growled: "OUT, SMEE, OUT!"

As the handsome boy with the forget-me-not eyes carried her from the piano bench into his bed, she thought that stories never tell the whole story. It was common knowledge that James Hook's eyes turned red just before he plunged the hook in to kill you. As the boy impatiently tore the lovely taffeta gown off her body, Moira wondered how many people knew that when he was plunging the hook for the kill was not the only time his soulful eyes turned a deep burgundy.

_**Programme Du Bal 3: Waltz: Serenade for Strings in E Major, Op.22- Antonin Dvorak: Moira and James**_

Moira stretched on the bed supple as a kitten. She rolled on her naked belly and then immediately rolled to be on her back again. She was still a bit sore from having just had her bellybutton pierced by Billy Jukes. The heavily tattooed man had insisted on giving everyone tattoos in celebration to commemorate Peter Pan's capture and permanent imprisonment inside a statue of himself playing the flutes. Making him a monument to himself was something that Moira and James thought was a poetically just fate for the narcissistic elf.

At the celebratory banquet aboard the newly outfitted Jolly Roger, they had all been too drunk to present any concerted opposition to Billy's idea. Still, drunk or not, she hadn't wanted a tattoo. And James had been glad not to have what he called her alabaster skin ruined by pirate ink. Moira knew her skin was not perfect, but James loved to play at drawing constellations with her freckles. So instead of a tattoo, she had let Billy pierce her bellybutton and pass through it a small golden hoop earring with a pear cut diamond dangling from it.

James had had a tattoo done: a wind rose with her name written were true north lays. That was the first tattoo James had ever gotten, and it had sent the whole crew into whispers, as if they were schoolgirls. When he had hung from his left ear the hoop earring's twin of the one Moira had on her bellybutton and said that it was accepted by ancient pagan authorities that the left side is the one connected directly to the heart; he had almost sent the crew into a riot. One mean stare from James' forget-me-not blue eyes with a red dot in the middle of them had taken care of the ruckus.

Nevertheless, the men had looked dreamily at them throughout the celebration that ran well into the next day came, when a rosy dawn broke right on the dot. Before crashing in bed, James had looked at his grandpa's clock -recovered from the bowels of a dead crocodile; that they planned to turn into a couple of booths for James and a belt for Moira.- He had checked the time and smiled pleased that things were finally starting to make some sense in Neverland. And a bit they were, but not too much. Though the worst of the weirdness had been taken in stride by all those concerned. The crew, for example, wouldn't even mentioned their Captain getting younger. He looked sixteen and not one day older. But he could still yank the leash of his dogs like nobody's business.

In despite of the pang of pain she still felt when she put weight on the ring, she was too happy about the whole thing to complain. The earrings and the tattoo meant that James was Moira's and Moira was James'. Their ship, their crew, their life of piracy. All theirs. That's how things worked among them. Moira hadn't felt more whole and alive in all of her life. They still played the piano together with uncanny synchronicity, though now they did it four hands, as James' right hand had grown back as soon as Pan had been taken out of the picture. And they played with Moira sitting on his lap. Not that they played a lot, as their playing usually ended in the bed they shared. Moira didn't mind much, in her heart of hearts she had been considering herself the _gaia_ to James' _gaius _way before they had exchanged earrings.

She smiled thinking of James, even though the boy was snoring right besides her. Carefully turning to face him, she had caressed his beardless cheek, with a mother's tenderness. And had to stifle a bemused giggle when, still fully asleep, the boy had murmured in dreams and turned to hold her tightly by the waist. He clung to her, caressing her back with his right hand without waking up. For a newly acquired limb, his fingers were very dextrous. And she, who had thought she would hate all kinds of clingliness, felt a surge of love for the sleeping boy that almost scared her. But Moira was a brave girl, she returned James' embrace with perfect aplomb. And waited patiently until he was deeply asleep again, before sneaking away from his arms.

James turned around and embraced a cushion. So much for her romantic revelries, if a cushion was a good enough replacement for her. She thought a bit sourly that perhaps it was time to start taking some of her mother's advise, at least in regards to eating like a proper lady; that is, if she didn't want to turn into a human cushion. Now that things in Neverland were closer to normal and the woods, plains and jungles were filled with creatures who really lived, breed and fed in more than a vaudeville act; Moira had gotten a fuller figure after a few months of eating well. Or maybe she just needed to spend more time climbing up the crow's nest and stop worrying so much about what she put in her mouth. Some things she had put in her mouth only recently, she enjoyed just too much to stop putting.

She rolled her eyes up at the girl in the mirror and chided: _What would mother think of you, Moira? _Something she really didn't care about; but that always made her laugh. And what better way to start your day than with a laugh? Isn't laughter the best kind of prayer? Careful not to wake her lover, she giggled softly into the mirror. Then she oiled and brushed her hair. When she was done with that she had washed on the basin stand, the water was cool but the day was warm, so she didn't much mind.

After her toilette was done, she had put on her stockings, her bloomers and chemise, which James insisted on her wearing. When Moira had pouted at him, he had said it was not a good idea to rattle the dogs too much. But she knew he had somewhat old fashioned sensibilities and he had already let her get away with so much that she had conceded that to him. She had only refused to wear a corset. When their ship went on the prowl, she wore pantaloons, but since after the banquet the crew was in no shape to do anything but stay docked for a couple of days; she had tied up her favorite peacock green and purple silk around herself like a Sarong. Almost as an afterthought, she had put two droplets of sandalwood essential oil behind her ears.

She went to the kitchen to look for something to break fast with before Smee woke up. In her head she never called him Mr. Smee. But for James' sake she tried to be courteous to him. Even though the Irishman had made it no secret he disliked her. She could have run the man through and through with her knife, a mean Venetian dagger that Cecco had procured for her. But Moira thought sweet James deserved some indulgence from her. Her lover had been initially disappointed at how easy taking over Neverland had been. James had imagined his final confrontation with Peter as a battle of epic proportions. Peter wasn't the only one prone to theatricality. Moira was far more practical than the both of them. She had closed the deal by striking a bargain with the King and Queen of the fairies.

When she had ran her idea through James he had exclaimed: "It can't be that easy!"

"But my love, it is. Fairies are ancient powers beyond mortal considerations of human good and evil. They used to rule over the moors and the highlands. How do you think they feel at being at the mercy of a half-wit babe's whims in this their last retreat?"

"Like hell, of course! Isn't that how we all feel about being at the mercy of bloody Pan? But if they feel that way: why give him fairy dust and why put up with him?"

"Because at some point he became linked to the land and because some of the very own fairies like that stupid Tinker Bell have realigned themselves with him. Fairy tales have very strict rules, my love. You cannot deviate from them. But, within those rules, you have room to wiggle. So as first order we need to take Tinker Bell out."

He rose an eyebrow: "Won't that give him the heads up?"

She stood up and paced in front him: "You said it yourself, he won't remember the fairy a few minutes after she disappears. Then we can get him… There is just one other thing, love."

He grabbed her by the waist and made her sit on his lap: "What is it, love?"

She bit her lip, he wasn't going to like it: "We cannot kill him."

His eyes shone a dangerously red: "What you mean we cannot kill him? Do you still have feelings for the boy, Moira?"

He was raging like a bull; but she couldn't resist pulling his leg: "Oh yes, I do." She felt him tense against her, the hook flashed and she quickly added: "Murderous feelings, my love. But we cannot kill him because as I've already pointed out: he is still linked to the land. We can twist the rules a bit, but we cannot escape them."

He spat and cursed with his fist in the air: "Bloody hell! I just cannot win this! Can I?"

She kissed his mouth: "Calm down, my love. We will win because unlike innocent Peter Pan you and I know there are worse fates than dying. We know that some forms of living are worse than any conceivable death. And we also know the only thing that awaits you after death is nothingness. Greatest adventure of all, my arse! Deep down, Peter Pan knows it too, that is why he ran to Kensington Gardens in the first place. But as big as his imagination is, unguided and untrained, it is limited. Ours isn't, James Hook. We will win and we will know that we have won because we will be able to live the life that pleases us. That will be our victory over all of our enemies. Not some supposed epic battle with Peter Pan and his ridiculous Lost Boys. We are not playing games here. The age of games in Neverland is over. It is time to get serious. And when you have a chance of winning without loosing a single man or spilling one drop of blood, you take it. The fairies, the real ones, are going to help us freeze him in his very own version of Kengsinton Gardens, which is -oddly enough- just the fate he wanted for himself. Trust a fairy to screw you over without breaching contract, they are worse than barristers, curse the whole lot of them," she ended spitting on the deck.

He smiled: "Oh, you do know what fairies are like; which begs the question, my love, why are you trusting them to help us?"

She laughed a wicked laugh that made something nameless, powerful and ancient that had taken its first breath when the world was born and who will take its last when everything else has already died; stir in the woods. She gazed into the blue forget-me-not eyes of her lover and said: "I think so because we are not going to be foolish enough to ask the fairies for anything. What you and I want, we are smart and crafty enough to take for ourselves. And what we are going to offer to the fairies is a chance to get out of a deal they were stupid enough to strike with Peter Pan."

James frowned: "They made a deal with Pan?"

"Not in so many words I don't think so, but they needed him and his mind to be able to survive as their traditional places vanished. They saw him as an out and he has become a prison for them as much as for ourselves. So we are going to offer them a real out: A chance to take a hold of the dreams of men through Neverland without the hurdle of Peter Pan and, in exchange, we will claim rights of use over this land to further our own agenda, not forever, for only a child with more imagination than wits would see forever as anything else but a curse, however we will live for as long as it pleases us. That is my plan, James Hook."

"Devil be praised, woman I love you!"

"I love you too. So we get rid of Pan. Then we are going to let the lost boys lose themselves in a gutter in Whitechapel, where they will probably sell the lot of little swines to make fat for soap, unless my parents find them first and do something stupid like adopting them all. I honestly don't give a fig. And then we can sail the seas, just like we always wanted, and forget all about Peter Pan in what is truly the greatest adventure of all: Life. What say you, James Hook? Are you with me?"

He had smiled and kissed her back: "Always Pirate Moira. Now let's be done with the whole lot of nasty children and sail away to that life of freedom you are delightfully trumpeting right now, my love. Don't exert yourself further, you are preaching to the choir here."

Recovering his arm had mollified him sufficiently from missing out on his epic fight. Now the fairies, powers of yore both dark and light that couldn't care less if kids believed in them or not, roamed free in Neverland and through it, in the dreams of mankind. And so did the Pirates. They were free to sail, free to live and die by the sword. With no country to serve and no masters to bow to save their own ambitions.

The considerable powers of the land of magic, for that is what Neverland had become, ruled with wile and intent by Moira, James and the _f__ā__tum_, allowed them to make incursions wherever and whenever it pleased them in the course of human time with the Jolly Roger; that had changed from a comedic prop into a Golden Age of Piracy proper warship.

That had been the beginning of Moira's cold war with Mr. Smee. The man had been sleeping in the kitchen when the rumble of the Jolly Roger had woke him up. He had looked at the changed ship he could no longer recognize and gone tell on her to James.

Good thing James had already known what she intended to do. In fact, she had taken out the idea for the triple masted rogue barquentine the likes of which the Royal Navy had never seen from James's head. She thought the fact that most pirate ships weren't barquentines gave them an edge.

The experimental vessel James had based his dream ship on was, as most barquentines, square rigged in the foremast and fore-and-aft-rigged in the other three mast with simplified rigging and a horizontal sprit that enabled each sail to be deployed rapidly while most work could be done on the deck, including replacing the topmast. It took some time for the men to adapt but once they had, they were unstoppable.

The design had been abandoned as it had come when the age of the sail was almost done. But now, from the harbor of Neverland, they could take to the seas when pirates ruled. And they could take on it from a very advantageous position.

The new Jolly Roger was a vessel with fine lines at bow, deep keel and an unusually high length to beam ratio that made it very easy to maneuver and incredibly fast. It was an experimental design that had been abandoned because of the incompatibility with the black powder smooth barrel cannons back then. But Noodler, who had his hands sewn backwards but his brains straight, was a ballistic enthusiast and had introduced rifling to create more torque and make the Roger's gun deck all about precision and long range, which offset the necessity of short range efficacy that required more room in the gun deck.

James had looked at his new ship, right out from his head and had asked with a small child's enthusiasm: "Is it really mine?"

She smiled: "It's ours, my love."

"Is it fair to take nineteen century technology to seventeen century piracy?"

She smiled wider: "My love, that is the sort of question my brother John could have asked. You tell me, Blackbeard's bosun, what do you think a real seventeen century pirate would say at being given the opportunity to get hold of an unbeatable vessel?."

He had already told her all her pirate biography had come straight from Neverland. He had only sailed under captain Peter until the bastard had cut off his hand for not playing just the way he wanted. Even if James hadn't signed up for being the villain, Pan forced him to be one. So he smiled just as wide as she had and said: "All is fair..."

Of course, stupid Smee hadn't been able to see it. He had stood looking irate at Moira. Positively shaking from anger and muttered in his half tongue: "What yo' done to r ship, witch?"

For a moment Moira thought the plump old man was going to come at her, she hold tight to her knife, ready to gut him like a fish. All the while hating him for making her kill him; for she knew that would make James sad.

But that hadn't happened. James had slapped Smee and cried out: "Mr. Smee, that is no way to address a lady. Let alone one who is to become your new captain. Mr. Teynte, I call upon the Articles of Agreement to both propose Pirate Moira as co-captain and to give Mr. Smee ten lashes to teach him manners."

Ed Teynte that was almost as loyal to Hook as Smee, hesitated only for a second, then he had called for Moira to present her case. She talked to the crew as she had talked to James, about using the powers of the _f__ā__tum_ to achieve their dream of a life of freedom. She had been cheered and voted as captain save for two votes. As the ballots were blind, Moira had doubts about whose vote could one of those two be. For she was sure that one of them had been Smee's. She enjoyed each one of the five lashes that the man had received. Neither James nor the crew could go through with the ten lashes.

To try to figure out who had voted against her, Moira had finished her acceptance speech by saying that the days of pantomime were done, they were going to be a real crew, living or dying by the sword as a true democracy under the Articles of Agreements. She advised all those whose dream life wasn't that to jump ship next they docked in the outer world. She said that never again would free men be forced to live other person's dreams in Neverland.

James had stood up for her, but had felt so wretched about hitting Smee that he had taken great pains to patch things up with the Irishman. It took effort, but he had, so well; that though Moira had hoped that the next time they made port Smee was going to leave the Jolly Roger, the Irishman didn't. The only one who jumped ship was a nondescript man called George Scourie that she had barely noticed. Smee had staid. And, though he was obedient and hadn't even raised his eyes at her, she still could feel his hate.

That was but a minor set back. She didn't fear the man. The reason why she went to look for breakfast before he woke up was that she didn't want to see his face first thing in the morning, not that she feared he could poison her. She knew him incapable of doing anything that would hurt James, so she felt perfectly safe. And that little imperfection in her otherwise perfect life gave her confidence that she was not living deluded. Of course, if Neverland were truly a figment of her imagination, Smee may very well be a device of her mind to keep herself content. She had even discussed it with James.

He had laughed saying she was over thinking it; then he had frowned and asked: "If Mr. Smee is a figment of your imagination to give verisimilitude to the story, what would I be?"

"My Prince Charming," she had answered without thinking. But he had thought it a joke and had laughed some more.

She let it stay and they set sails and lived more adventures than she could number and she was perfectly happy right until the day she no longer was, thanks to the nightmare. The nightmare that sent her head spinning and threatened to end her reign over Neverland.

_**Programme Du Bal 4: Polka: Danza delle Ore from La Gioconda- Amilcare Ponchielli: Moira**_

The nightmare had started when she heard a baby giggle. A shiver ran down her spine and for a moment she feared he was back. Not that she could even remember what's his face. She gritted her teeth and got ready to fight for what by then she considered hers. She was not giving Neverland back, never!

She had waited a changeling and found something worse. In her dream she had walked to find a baby, a very human baby on the desk where James and she read the charts. She held her breath until she had to remind herself to breathe. The baby began shrinking to a tiny point of light that went inside her belly.

"No, no, no, you can't. You won't. Let go of me, you despicable thing!"

She had woke up crying so loud that she woke up James too. She told him the dream and James reminded her that nothing could happen to them in Neverland, unless they wanted it to. But that was exactly the problem. A very big part of Moira considered it a horrible nightmare; but a small part, a diminutive, yet sizable part of her, thought about it as a dream. A dream about something she wanted, in spite of all her protests to the contrary.

From that day on she itched, like that bloody princess who could feel the pea underneath a thousand mattresses. The little thing, small as a pea that she felt like a nagging possibility inside her, was taking up her dream life from her. She should have hated it, but she couldn't. Cursed be the pea, she just couldn't hate it.

After the third night she had woke up screaming, James had hugged her tightly and asked: "Can I do anything to help, my love? You know I will follow you to hell, if you ask me to."

She sighed. James Hook was a pirate, asking him to be anything but would be a grave betrayal to him and to herself. Moira would never do that. She answered: "I know my love. But this hell is of my own making. I don't think anyone can do anything about it, but me. I've tried to ignore it, but I cannot ignore it anymore. I need to got to the fairies and ask them for something." Then she had explained James what she needed to do.

He looked terrified and that scared her more than anything else. He whispered: "Is it the only way?"

She nodded.

He nodded back pensively: "Are you coming back to me, Moira?"

She never made promises unless she intended to keep them and she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to come back, so she answered with the best truth she had: "I will if I can."

They talked about it some more, pondering every course of action as they did before approaching another ship. When they were done James hugged her even tighter and then he let her go.

She got dressed in her pantaloons, grabbed her saber, her pistols, hid the Venetian dagger in her booth and went into the woods that very night. After docking the barge where the men were sure to find it; she rode Charcoal -her blue roan.- It had been ages since the last time she had flown.

She liked riding her horse. Charls was more friend than instrument. The camaraderie we have with animals is at times deeper and shallower than the one we share with humans; but it can be just as defining. Moira was not the same as she was before owning Charls. No small part of it was because the roan was the very image of the horse she used to dream about when she had been a very little.

She rode Charcoal right until the woods grew too wild to be able to do anything but move on foot. She dismounted the horse and, just in case, hugged it goodbye. As she took her bag off Charcoal's rump, she whispered in its ear: "Charls, luv, I hope I can come back. But, in case I can't: know that I love you more than I ever loved any other playmate, even my brothers. In some ways you know me better than I know myself and you still love me more than my brothers ever did, for that I thank you. Take care of James, Charls, tell him I love him so much that words could never be enough to say how much. I leave half my soul with him. I will come back, if I can, that I can promise."

Then she had slapped the horse on the haunch and let it run back home, wishing with all her heart she could forget about the damned pea and do just that.

She walked until her feet hurt. Her arms hurt too, as she had to use her saber as a machete to get through the thicket. By midday, when the sun was high over her head, the shrubbery became more sparse; but the ground had steeper slopes and big rocks sprouting from it. She stopped long enough to fashion a cane with a sturdy branch. When she finished, she took a long drink from her canteen and a few bites from some bread and cheese she had in her bag. Afterwards, she resumed walking aided by the cane, until hurt became a word she could no longer understand. That is when a castle appeared in a clear in the woods.

The castle was made entirely out of moss covered rock and was only visible if you looked at it sideways. Walking like a crab she made it to the entrance where a gentlemanly doorman dressed in dark green livery asked for her name and the purpose of her visit, she replied without hesitation: "Captain Moira Hook, asking for audience with the King and Queen." And the certainty that she was Moira Hook gave her comfort.

Her name was announced and she was led through the richly dressed courtesans, dusty and tired, right into the throne room, where the imposing Queen and King of the fairies held audience in full regalia.

Moira gave the rulers of all fairies a courteous nod, the kind an equal gives to another, to remind them that they only sat in their thrones because of the girl that now stood in front of them. It was the moment of truth, things could go south fairly quick from there.

The Queen and the King nodded back and the King said with a great measure of mockery in his voice: "The last time you came to us, you seemed reluctant to ask favors from the _f__ā__tum_, yet here you stand, a mere blink later by fairy time asking us for a favor. How that has come to happen, Captain Moira Hook?"

The Queen covered a laugh with a fan made of fern leaves and said: "Do tell, child, we fairies love a good story and of all the stories told about us, few do us justice."

Ah, trust the damned fairies to leave things clear and neat from the get go. But they didn't have all the cards. Pirate Moira had saved a couple of aces up her sleeve. She told them her story without leaving anything out, for at times truth is a more powerful weapon than a lie. When she told them what her request was, Moira saw the terror in the Queen's and the King's face and had to make an effort not to smile.

The King asked: "Is your husband to join you in this adventure, Captain?"

She lied through her teeth as James and her had agreed that the Jolly Roger would make a run for it if she didn't return within a fortnight. She looked at the King steadily as she said: "No, my husband will remain in Neverland until I return."

The Queen and King whispered among themselves then they said: "This is no trivial matter, we must hold council about it. We ask you to come back by dusk tomorrow before we can answer if we will grant your request."

She bowed briefly: "Of course, your majesties. Hold your council and I'll be back by dusk tomorrow to know your answer."

The Queen said in the perfect hostess tone: "You are welcome to join our feast, if you want, while the council convenes."

But Moira had come prepared to avoid the snare: "You honor me, your majesty. But I must decline. Whether you grant or deny my request, a great quest awaits me. This quest I cannot face unless I cleanse my mind before it. And the best place to do so is deep in the woods where not even the beasts astir. I will set up camp there and meditate until it is time to meet again."

The King looked at her with narrowed eyes, but couldn't find fault in her reply; so they had to let her go.

She sighed relieved the moment she stepped out of the castle. She walked as far as her tired feet allowed before setting up camp. She did so in a rock formation which had the red stripes of hematite that indicate a great content of iron; which is an element abhorrent to all fairy folk. She sat looking longingly in the direction of the coast as she ate what dinner she could before going to sleep.

She should have really used the time to cleanse her mind. But the speck on it was too hard to wash off. Instead she explored the woods as she had done long ago. She climbed up trees. She spied the little creatures that make their home underneath the leaves. She even found a quarry in which she swam with a friendly beast that looked part horse and part fish.

By dusk, she packed her few possessions, put on a clean shirt, combed her hair and went back to the castle.

Her request would be granted. She bit her lip, unsure of how she felt about it and said: "Your majesties are most gracious, but before I can accept your largesse, I must ask what the price of it might be."

The King rose, his face twisted in an angry scowl: "Are we now lowly merchants that a price tag can be put to our generosity, Captain Hook?"

The use of James' name was calculated to twist a knife in her and it worked. It hurt like hell! And it could have taken her breath away, if she hadn't come prepared for their trickery with her own pirate scheming.

She threw herself on the floor banging her forehead against it as supplicants do in Cathay: "Oh gracious King, pardon me if I have offended you! I'm but a mortal who lacks the _f__ā__tum_ foresight and wisdom. It was never my intention to imply the _f__ā__tum_ could be lowly pen pushers, keeping tabs of the favors they grant with liberality just to turn around on a later date and ask for anything in return. Be generous with your mercy too and excuse the foolishness of this lowly woman!"

The Queen, who was playing the merciful one said: "Forgive her, my dear. We cannot expect better manners from mortals." The King nodded sourly and the Queen turned towards Moira and with a wave of her fan indicated she could raise from the floor.

As she stood up, she smiled sweetly: "Your majesties, I can never thank you enough, for now I rest calmly in the certainty that the most generous rulers of all fairy kin will never ask anything from me or my kin in return for this favor that you are freely granting me today."

A silence you could cut with a knife fell on the throne room. The courtiers looked at each other thunderstruck. The Queen was barely able to hide her pointy fangs behind her beautiful fern fan as her mouth was twisted in disgust and the scowl on the King's pretty face was real this time.

She could see clockwork gears going round their minds, trying to find a way to catch the bird that had flown away back in their nets. After a couple of seconds the sepulchral silence was broken by the doorman's steps, who walked into the throne room carrying a bag of fairy dust.

She had tricked them! She hadn't been sure it would work, but it had! Blessed be James who could scheme better than Machiavelli!

The doorkeeper in the dark green livery handed her the precious fairy dust in a smaller bag and showed her to the door that closed behind her with finality.

She sighed and thought: _Good riddance, your majesties, I have what I needed to get from you and I hope that we never meet again in such circumstances._

She went back to the quarry and attempted to teach herself how to fly again. After a few failed attempts that had only managed to get her thoroughly wet; she thought that perhaps the fairies were going to have the last laugh. Thinking about going to her family's home sucked all cheer out of her. She could not conjure one single happy thought, if her life depended on it.

Her reflection in the water frowned and said: "Your life depends on it, girl. So get a bloody happy thought now!"

"Yeah, you cannot produce happiness on demand, dumbarse! And thinking about going back is so horrid I cannot think about anything else."

The reflection scowled: "You are the dumbarse! Think about what makes you happy."

She smiled sadly: "The Jolly Roger makes me happy. The sea makes me happy. Catching up with a ship and taking their loot with as little lose for both sides possible makes me happy. The sky over the deep ocean where stars, clouds, the moon and the sun shine unhindered by all trace of humanity make me happy. Swimming where only the fish have swam before makes me happy. Ridding Charcoal through the plains with the redskins in hot pursue makes me happy. And James makes me happy, more happy that I can say."

Her reflection smiled: "Then think of him and of coming back to him."

She was two feet above the ground before she could notice that it was working. She put the fairy dust away in the bag and flew towards London.

It took her more than a couple of minutes to realize she was flying over London for the city she had once known laid wasted. A great calamity had happened. She dusted some more fairy dust on her head and wished to go to where her family was. She was taken to a cemetery where Michael son's funeral was being held. She found out with the enhanced senses of fairies that just as Michael had passed away in a war, the boy had lost his life fighting for his country. Her older brother John bore the mark of the atrocities he had seen too. Some of the Lost Boys and their families were there too. And lost boys they were still, lost in two wars that had shaped them into tired, hardened men.

Moira didn't need to see more. She whispered to the pea within her belly that it would never be born, not to a world where those atrocities could happen. Never to a world where a fool with half an idea and a banner could take her baby away from her arms and send it to die in a meaningless way. Before returning to her home in Neverland, where the pea should remain nothing but a distant possibility; Moira visited her parent's grave and told the slab that was above her mother -condemned for eternity to lay besides a man she had never loved enough to give her secret kiss to- that Moira did love the man she laid with every night, that she was happy and well… Imagine that! The girl her mother had thought less likely to achieve happiness when she went through the drawers of her mind; had somehow managed.

"This is the last time I'll come to visit you, mum, dad." She allowed herself to cry a few tears for all that the family she had left behind had had to endure. Then she flew on fairy dust fast and true until she saw the shores of Neverland. She could sense James before she actually saw him, spying the sky, waiting for her return. Her beautiful boy with forget-me-not blue eyes who would never grow old and who would never fight for anyone but himself.

He smiled at her: "You are back."

She smiled back: "For as long as you want me, my love."

They embraced and he muttered with a voice thick with emotion: "Then Moira Hook, be prepared to stay by my side for a very long time."

Mr. Smee looked at once proud pirate James Hook trembling like a boy holding onto the girl and knew that the witch had come back to stay. By the looks of the dogs, no one much minded. The crew could barely hold back their tears; for pirates are rough men but they are also always dreamers and dreamers are allowed to be swayed by emotion at times.

The witch looked at him and said: "Mr. Smee, a feast is in order. Prepare us a meal fit for the Kings of Old." Then she had handed him a black cloth: "Looking at it from above I noticed the Jolly Roger's banner was torn. Sew it, Mr. Smee." Then she had tried to soften the harsh order by saying: "Please."

But Mr. Smee saw right through her. She was just as bad as Pan had been. But James Hook was too bewitched to see it. The good old days of lounging in Pirate's Cove, patiently waiting for Pan to fly by were gone forever. The girl had come and changed everything and Smee, who had hoped she'd never come back, felt his hopes crushed by her return. But he was a loyal man and he would stay by Captain Hook's side for as long as he was allowed to.

He prepared the feast but didn't feel like joining it. He went to the quarterdeck with his sewing machine and mended old Jolly Roger. While he did he whistled a forlorn Irish air. Looking at their old, tattered banner, Mr. Smee let a tear, one single tear, roll down his wrinkled cheek. It rolled overboard and fell on the water where it turned into a gray pearl, perfect and round. A mermaid that was swimming by caught it and, sensing how rare it was, took it to the coral caves that the merpeople of Neverland call their home. It put the pearl over a heap of treasure and it is my understanding that there it is still and there it will remain, forever more.

_**AN: The programme du bal or dancing card was in the height of its popularity during the 19th century, but was used up until WWI. The order of the dances in this fic serves more to the telling of the story than to attempt an accurate reconstruction of one of such dancing cards. Though I'm using the standard format of the type of dance, name of the piece, composer and dance partner. **_

_**In that wonderful repository of bric-à-brac that Youtube is; there is an amazing performance of Shubert's Erlkönig arranged just for left hand by this guy Nicholas McCarthy, if you care to watch. I love anything that highlights the unbreakable strength of the human spirit and this video does. **_

_**Also, I love Oliver Herford's illustrations of Wendy Moira Angela Darling so much that I'm going to go by them in describing her. As this story is the opposite of canon to what J.M. Barrie wrote about Wendy, one may even call it AU. Though I think that a universe as widely rich as the one James created can take a lot without splitting. I rest confidently sure that Peter Pan will survive my Moira.**_

_**This fic is dedicated to my hubby for always being on the ready to ride with me to what J. R. R. Tolkien called the Perilous Realm. All hail Märchen! Perhaps if we told our children more fairy tales and less speeches, they all would end up being decent rebels and renegades.**_

_**Professor, I know how cautious you mathematicians are around uncountable infinities, so I'll just say that I'm yours forever and a day. Love The Sleuth. **_

_**Oh, by the by, I'm a banker by trade-ain't anything closer to being a privateer in this day and age, people- and I love my parents, my siblings and my friends dearly, so none should take offense by Moira's views on the subject.**_


End file.
